Road Trip
by DancingKirby
Summary: Takes place 13 years before GX. The Manjoume family goes on a tour of America. But that won't be easy with a moody teenager, a videogame obsessed kid, and a bratty toddler...
1. The Idea

A/N: I've had an urge to write a pastfic about the Manjoume group for a long time. What finally spurred me on is the fact that there are virtually no fics with all three of them as children. It's just the older two, or just Jun himself.

I know that the basic plot has been done to death in movies. However, I will try my hardest to put some unique twists into it.

This will take place in the early 90s, so I will use the culture, current events, and technology from that era.

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It was almost 7:30 PM.

This was significant because 7:30 was the time when, once a week, Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume met with their three children. They knew that a half-hour long meeting once a week was not nearly enough time to know their children well. However, it was all they could do just to keep THAT small time slot free.

They were forced to unplug all their telephones, computers, and fax machines during that time. Otherwise, their associates could, and often did, distract them.

So now the pair were just sitting in Mr. Manjoume's study. The silence in the room had an eerie feel to it. They said nothing, because they had nothing to say. Really, they didn't see each other much more than they saw the kids.

This was far from ideal family life, but it had to be done. It was a sacrifice that had to be made in exchange for wealth, prestige, and power. They knew no other way.

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At exactly 7:30, loud, scuffling footsteps could be heard coming down the hall.

That had to be Chosaku. It was almost an unwritten rule that the boys always appeared in age order. Sure enough, Chosaku was soon opening the door and stomping across the fine Persian rug. He slouched in a chair, put his dirty sneakers on the velvet footstool, and did not look at his parents.

Obviously, he was in another one of those pubescent moods. He had just become a teenager with his birthday the month before. However, said parents were too preoccupied to notice the moodiness. Shoji had just arrived. Thankfully, at eleven, he wasn't affected by hormones much.

However, Shoji didn't look at his parents either. He wasn't angry like Chosaku, though. No, Shoji was just too wrapped up in his handheld gaming device to notice anything in the outside world. Several minutes passed, with the only noise coming from Shoji's game.

Then, they finally heard it: a constant stream of scolding coming from the hallway that was getting gradually louder.

"Don't touch that. Hey, I told you not to touch it! Listen to me! Oh no, that is NOT good to eat! Give it to me. I said GIVE IT TO ME! Do you want a timeout? HEY, COME BACK HERE!"

Scuffling sounds ensued.

Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume showed signs of life for once. Mr. Manjoume put down the old newspaper he was skimming, and Mrs. Manjoume ran to open the door. Finally, a very weary-looking nanny walked in, presumably having regained possession of the straying toddler, Jun. Jun was...well, it was almost impossible to tell just where he'd been, because he was almost immediately scooped up by his mother.

Shoji and Chosaku rolled their eyes at each other when their parents weren't looking. Their mother especially thought Jun was just a perfect little angel. He certainly looked the part, with that adorably messy hair, big dark eyes, and translucent skin. However, Chosaku and Shoji both knew better. They had heard the horror stories that the servants loved to swap.

According to these servants, Jun's bad behavior redefined the phrase "terrible twos".

As Mrs. Manjoume went on and on about how cute and adorable and loving her precious little boy was, Jun innocently snuggled his face into her shoulder. Shoji put his game on pause so he and his older brother could make faces at all the sappiness.

The worst part was, Mrs. Manjoume always fell for it hook, line and sinker. She refused to hear even hints that Jun was an unmanageable, spoiled brat to everyone else.

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Now that everyone was finally there, uneasy silence reigned again.

Mr. Manjoume was reading the old paper. Mrs. Manjoume was still fussing over Jun. Chosaku was sulking. Shoji was playing his game. Jun was sitting in his mother's lap. Other than physical resemblances and Mrs. Manjoume's affection towards Jun, it was almost impossible to tell that all of these people were related to each other.

Finally, Mr. Manjoume had had enough. He broke the silence with, "This nonsense has got to stop NOW!"

Everyone was surprised at this outburst, so they waited for Mr. Manjoume to explain himself.

"This is ridiculous!" continued Mr. Manjoume, "We are a family; we're supposed to interact! If these meetings won't cause you to converse, I'll have to find some other method!"

For a while, Mr. Manjoume was in deep thought. Then, an idea struck him, seemingly from out of nowhere.

"Of course...we can go on a vacation! We can fly to America and do a cross country tour."

The ideas kept getting wilder by the moment.

"And we won't have any servants. It will be just us and the kids for a month!"

Finally, Mrs. Manjoume found the courage to speak.

"But dear...neither of us can be away from work for a whole month!"

Nothing could dissuade Mr. Manjoume now.

"We're CEOs. We can do whatever we want!"

With that, he rushed off to buy plane tickets.

Everyone was staring at each other in shock. Only one person spoke. It was the nurse, and she spoke so softly that no one else heard.

"But...Jun isn't even...potty-trained..."

She highly doubted that either of the parents knew how to change diapers. Oh well. They'd just have to learn! She was sick of how snobbish and detached from life the whole family was. Maybe a vacation wouldn't be good for them, but it would be amusing for her to imagine it!

And with that thought, she dragged a very cranky Jun off to bed.


	2. Jun Rides on a Plane

A/N: This chapter will be mostly focused on Jun. It will explain just why his mother is so fond of him. I'll even write some of it in the POV of Jun himself! I hope I'm okay at doing the POV of a two-year-old.

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Iori, the unfortunate soul who had been hired to be Jun's nurse, was already at the end of her rope. That usually didn't happen until around 4 PM on normal days. But today, she had lost her patience with Jun before it was even breakfast time.

The plane would be leaving at nine that very morning, so she had had to wake up Jun earlier than what he was accustomed to. Needless to say, Jun was not happy about this. He had bitten Iori as she was lifting him out of his bed, run away from her while she was trying to change his diaper, and had even tipped over his toy chest! Of course, Iori couldn't make him pick up his own toys. According to Jun's parents, that was too harsh of a punishment for such a sweet, innocent child. So Iori had nearly thrown out her back picking up all the toys, while Jun looked on.

And Jun didn't stop misbehaving when they got downstairs. When Iori's back was turned, he got into a candy dish. That wasn't good. Iori knew from way too much experience that large amounts of sugar made Jun as sick as a dog.

Iori had tried to scold Jun, but had been stopped by Mrs. Manjoume.

"Let him eat what he wants!" she had gushed. After all, he's my little miracle baby!"

Oh no. Not the miracle story AGAIN! Mrs. Manjoume had told it so many times, it had become a running joke amongst the servants. Everyone knew it by heart after two and a half years of hearing it.

Iori had heard a million times about how Mrs. Manjoume had given up hopes of a third child after trying for nearly six years. How she had accepted the fact that, at forty-two, she was too old to conceive. But of course, she HAD conceived, otherwise it wouldn't have been a miracle. Naturally, the conception had happened on a romantic trip to a tropical island.

And then, of course, there was the SECOND miracle. Jun had been born two months early, and had had every preemie health problem imaginable. Everyone had been sure that he would die. He had lived.

Well, that was all well and good for his mother. She didn't have to put up with all the problems that the premature birth had caused. It was Iori who had to take care of all the food allergies; the constant illnesses; the developmental problems.

If you asked Iori, Jun was more a curse than a miracle.

Mrs. Manjoume finally finished telling her story, though. From the looks on the faces of the other members of the family, they were just as sick of the story as Iori was.

They finished breakfast in silence.

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Jun was VERY VERY VERY MAD! Nothing had gone right today!

Stupid Iori had woken him up at the wrong time for NO REASON! He had bitten her. No, he wasn't sorry. She deserved it. Besides, it was always fun to hear her yelp in pain.

Did Jun mention that Iori was stupid? Well, he was mentioning it now.

Not like his mommy. His mommy was nice. She let Jun do whatever he wanted. Too bad he didn't get to see Mommy more often.

Currently, Jun was in the car with his family. His brothers were sitting in the seats in front of where Jun was. They were okay. For now.

Jun tried to think up ways of annoying them, but was distracted by his car seat. He hated his car seat. The uncomfortable straps restrained him, so he couldn't do anything fun.

When he was with Mommy, she let him sit on her lap while she drove. Or she put him into the front seat next to her.

But Iori had forced him into that stupid car seat!

For the millionth time, Jun tried unbuckling the seat belts. For the millionth time, he failed to do so. This was going to be a long day...

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They were on a plane now. Jun wasn't sure where it was going, but that was okay. Jun liked planes. He had been on one a couple months ago, when his mommy had taken him to Hawaii.

Hawaii had been okay, but the plane had definitely been the best part of the trip! The people who brought the food were nice, and the seats were big and soft. Best of all, there was no Iori, so Jun wouldn't have to follow all of her stupid, pointless rules!

Jun reached into his pocket and took out his favorite toy plane. He wasn't allowed to drive the big plane, but he could control this little one! He waved the toy all around, making engine noises. After a few minutes of this, Shoji looked up from that stupid beepy game of his.

He said, "Mother, will you please tell him to STOP MAKING THOSE NOISES? It's distracting me!"

Jun smiled. He liked finding ways to annoy people. It was almost as fun as planes, in fact. So he made his engine noises louder. Finally, Mommy said, "Jun, can you please try to not make those noises as loud?"

Jun simply said, "No!"

His mommy did not press further, and Jun was free to make the engine noises as loud as he wanted.

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Jun amused himself with the toy plane until he realized something. His tummy hurt. That happened a lot, actually. Iori said it was because of "problem foods", whatever those were.

Naturally, Jun had learned a long time ago how to act like his tummy hurt when it really didn't. It was a great way to get extra attention. But this wasn't a pretend tummy ache this time. It was real.

Jun decided to try to distract himself, so he started poking Chosaku. Poke. Poke. Poke. Hey, this was fun!

It was even more fun when Chosaku finally complained. Of course, Jun got his way again.

All Mommy said was, "He's just a baby! He doesn't know better!"

Jun was a bit insulted at being called a baby, but if it let him continue poking, he could tolerate it. Sadly, however, he was soon forced to quit the poking game. His tummy ache was back. And it was worse.

One of the few good things about Iori was that she knew how to fix tummy aches, even when they were bad. But Iori wasn't here...

Jun just sat there, feeling worse and worser, until a stranger across the aisle blurted out, "I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am, but I don't think your youngest kid is feeling too well..."

Mommy leaned over to see for herself. She was wearing a lot of perfume. The overwhelming perfume smell was just too much for Jun's stomach to take. He started gagging.

Then, someone was holding his face over a paper bag, and stuff all got kind of blurry.

When it got unblurry, Jun realized his tummy felt better now. But he was really tired. He put his head on his mommy's lap and dozed off.


	3. Chosaku's Life Sucks

A/N: I liked the idea one reviewer had of putting other characters from GX in as cameos. I'm not sure I'll get to Judai, but I have a lot of ideas.

Warning: Some of these ideas might contain spoilers. In fact, the FIRST idea I use might be this way. In fact, I have now decided to use that idea starting even in this chapter.

This chapter will be mostly in Chosaku's POV.

Disclaimer: I don't own GX.

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Why had Chosaku been forced to participate in this farce?

He had no interest in any part of America. This distaste was made even greater by the fact that he would be trapped in America with the embarrassing people that claimed to be his family!

Well, to be fair, Shoji was okay sometimes. But he was still a kid. He had no grasp of the utter agony that comprised Chosaku's daily life!

Their dad would most likely want to visit every tourist trap in the contiguous states. Chosaku made a note to conveniently vanish when that happened.

Their mom was always too absorbed in Jun to notice Chosaku's existence. Normally, this was annoying. However, it would most likely be a relief to be left alone during this vacation. It was very difficult for Chosaku to brood and sulk when his mom was trying to talk to him.

But Jun...now, Jun was the worst of them all! He was a little brat who was more or less allowed to rule the whole house.

He refused to learn manners of any kind, was prone to hitting and biting people who made him mad, and ate everything and anything that would fit into his mouth.

That last part made Jun be dramatically sick more often than not. And then everyone would fuss over him even MORE. In fact, he'd already been sick twice on this plane ride, and they weren't even halfway there yet!

The first time was probably airsickness. The second time was because Mom had let Jun eat too much of her steak at dinner. Red meat just so happened to be one of the many things on the list of foods that wreaked havoc on Jun's stomach.

Well, at least they were in first class. That gave Chosaku plenty of room to curl up by himself and contemplate the utter suckiness of his life until they reached their destination.

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It was the next day.

Well, actually, it was still technically the same day as when they left, because the plane had crossed the International Date Line. Chosaku could never figure out exactly how that thing worked. But there was no way he would ask his parents about it. That would require TALKING to somebody!

So here they were, in the Los Angeles airport. They were currently waiting for their luggage.

Jun was trying to escape from Mom so he could check out the two kids in the family standing next to them. However, even if Jun did run away, Chosaku doubted those other kids would want to play with him. They were engrossed in a conversation of their own, and were older than Jun to boot. The youngest kid looked to be about four, and Jun was only two.

Now that Chosaku was thinking about it, those people looked vaguely familiar. He was pretty sure they were a prominent family in Japan, but couldn't remember the surname.

Just then, their luggage arrived, so Chosaku couldn't contemplate it further.

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One good thing about being rich was that they didn't have to settle for a crummy rental car. In fact, the first thing Mom and Dad did was visit a high-end car dealership and purchase a roomy van on the spot.

Thankfully, it was not a camper vehicle. Dad may have been too rash with this vacation idea, but even he knew that camping was just out of the question. They would be staying at hotels like civilized people.

As Mom and Dad were packing all the luggage in the car, they were having a whispered yet heated debate. Not that Chosaku cared about what they said. Oh no. He just so happened to be standing close enough to hear. And why move when he was comfortable where he was?

The conversation was going something like this:

"THEY are here too."

"I'm sure it was just a coincidence! It's summer...all the families with small children want to go on vacation."

"They were watching us. I could tell."

"No they weren't; they were just waiting for their luggage!"

"They're inbred lunatics; the whole lot of them! That family should have died out decades ago! They just can't accept the fact that no one respects them anymore."

"That's a horrible thing to say!"

"Well, it's the truth."

And so on and so forth. Dad kept pointing out just how vile these mystery people were, and Mom kept denying Dad's claims.

Obviously, it was the family at the luggage rack. Chosaku failed to see what his parents found so interesting about them.

Well, at least America was a big country, so they would most likely never see the family again.

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They were now in the car. First destanation: San Francisco.

Chosaku had thought about making a joke about how perverted that city was rumored to be, but knew neither Mom nor Dad would believe him.

That, and it was actually peaceful for once in the car. Jun had finally fallen asleep after having his usual tantrum about being put into his car seat.

Hmm...maybe sleep wouldn't be such a bad idea. After all, the jet lag was really getting to everybody.

Chosaku decided to take a nap, but not before making sure that he had plenty of space around his seat. He didn't want Jun deciding to poke him again.

A/N: I just couldn't resist! All good family road-trip plots have to have another family as an external conflict. It's like the law.

Some of you may have guessed who this family is. Some may not have.

Therefore, please don't say who you think it is in a review. However, it's fine if you say that you THINK you know. Just don't give your guess away.


	4. Mrs Manjoume Meets a Spy?

A/N: This chapter will give away more clues as to the identity of the Other Family of Doom. But I won't reveal the name just yet.

This chapter will have what you have all been waiting for...Mrs. Manjoume's point of view!

Just a quick note for the whole fic: When people are speaking Japanese, it will be in regular type. English will be in italics.

P.S. I said not to give away the guess...fortunately, it was incorrect. Just remember next time to just say whether you think you know or not-don't give away the guess!

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After driving for a couple of hours, Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume decided to stop at a rest area. They had bought a complete picnic dinner at the airport, so there was no need for a restaurant.

It was at this rest stop that Mrs. Manjoume found out the hard way that her precious Jun was not potty trained.

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Well, THIS was a wonderful situation.

It had to be the fault of that lazy nanny. Yes, that was it! Mrs. Manjoume was confident that Jun could learn things like this. It was DEFINITELY Iori's fault for not bothering to teach him!

Well, Iori would have to wait until they got back. Now, Mrs. Manjoume had to change the diaper by herself. How could she do that when she couldn't even figure out how to work the changing table?

Poor Jun. Unless he snuck off to change himself, he had worn the same diaper since they left Japan the day before. Mrs. Manjoume was so overwhelmed by shame that she shouted out loud, "I'M A HORRIBLE PARENT!"

The other occupants of the ladies' room stared at this, but decided not to intervene.

Mrs. Manjoume looked to Jun so she could apologize to him and promise to buy him lots of candy.

But Jun was gone!

Mrs. Manjoume started to hyperventilate, getting ready to scream again, when a soft voice said, "I think this is your son?"

Mrs. Manjoume turned around.

Jun was safe! He hadn't fallen down a hole or drowned or gotten eaten by monkeys!

Mrs. Manjoume was so relieved, she didn't even notice that the speaker was speaking in Japanese. If she had had her wits about her, she would have thought this a strange coincidence.

The toddler in question was in the arms of one of the most strange-looking women Mrs. Manjoume had ever seen.

The woman was young; probably twenty-five or even younger. She was dressed in white from head to toe, complete with veil. Fortunately, the veil was flipped up so that Mrs. Manjoume could see her face. But it really didn't matter what this woman looked like, not when she had saved Jun from certain peril!

To make the moment even better, the woman even volunteered to teach Mrs. Manjoume to change a diaper.

"I'm sorry; I just couldn't help but see that you needed some tips_," _she explained.

It was only after they were done, and Mrs. Manjoume had thanked the mystery woman dozens of times, that she finally thought to ask how such a young woman had acquired such good child-rearing skills.

The woman introduced herself as Akane. She was apparently a nanny working for a wealthy Japanese family, much like Jun's nurse Iori. She had been put in charge of the younger of the family's two children, who was four. Apparently, she and the little girl had formed a strong bond over the years.

Mrs. Manjoume replied that there was no way that this girl could be cuter than her Jun, and a good-natured debate started between the two women as they walked out of the restroom.

Eventually, they had to go their separate ways. Akane's employers wanted to move on as quickly as possible.

The two were just saying their goodbyes when Mr. Manjoume appeared seemingly out of nowhere. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

"Get away from that woman! She works for THEM!" he nearly screamed.

Mrs. Manjoume opened her mouth to scold her husband for having such terrible manners, but Akane cut in.

"It's perfectly fine. I'm used to this sort of thing by now..."

It was hard to tell if she was mad or not. Her face remained expressionless.

And then, just as suddenly as Akane had appeared, she was gone.

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No one in the Manjoume family said anything else until they reached the hotel where they would rest for the night.

Jun was so tired, he curled up on the hotel room floor and went to sleep. Chosaku and Shoji reverted to sulking and gaming, respectively.

Mr. Manjoume finally spoke to his wife.

"I'm sorry for what I did at the rest stop.." he began.

Mrs. Manjoume managed to keep her anger mostly in check and replied with, "She was a nice woman. There was no need to be so rude!"

Mr. Manjoume moved closer and whispered, "Don't you see? I was scared for you and Jun. You've heard the stories about that family. They are all notorious for not being right in the head!"

"But she's not even a member of the family! She was a servant."

"Nevertheless...she could be a spy. They could have sent her to see what we're up to."

"I told you before, they are just another family going on vacation. And besides, you know I've met them all at parties before. They seemed perfectly normal to me."

"They're good actors."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Everyone knows that none of those people are normal. Their older kid is five and likes to read Freud and meditate! Does that sound the least bit normal to you?"

"Six in October..."

"All right, fine, six in October! My point still stands."

"It's a phase. He's just a kid."

"They're all just kids at first. Then they grow up and form alliances with the yakuza. Not to mention spending all their money on those harems they're so fond of..."

Mrs. Manjoume could not believe that her husband had used the word "harem" in front of the children!

Before Mr. Manjoume could get into even more graphic detail, she interrupted him by saying, "Wow, it's getting late! We should all go to bed now! Kids, get ready for bed please!"

And that was the end of that. For the time being, at least...

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A/N: The good stuff will start next chapter! At least, I think so.

So...have anybody's suspicions been confirmed? Changed? I am curious at how good I am at giving away just the right amount.

As before, don't say who you think they are in the review. If you really want to share your guess, PM me.


	5. Shoji's Quest for the Final Boss

A/N: Like the summary said, I revised the last two chapters to give away even MORE hints about the identity of the family.

But I'll reveal the identity soon. Not this chapter, though, because I don't want them taking over the whole story, which is supposed to be about the Manjoumes.

This chapter is Shoji's POV. If I get everything arranged right, next chapter will be Mr. Manjoume, then it's back to Jun. But I might not go in the same order every time.

Disclaimer: I don't own Yu Gi Oh or any aspect of San Francisco.

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It was early in the morning. Shoji was taking full advantage of the peace and quiet by catching up on his gaming.

Just a few more minutes, and he'd finally beat the game! He'd been trying to do just that since he got the game for his birthday in April. That had been three months ago, but it was a hard game.

He was moving into the lair of the final boss when...OW!

His mom had just wrenched the heavy curtains open. Sunlight spilled into the hotel room. Said light blinded Shoji momentarily and made it so he lost his last life in the game by accident.

Crud. Now he'd have to start over at the very beginning of the level! And, being the last level, it was the longest and toughest level in the whole game!

That was it. Shoji's day was officially ruined.

But Mom didn't seem to care about this cataclysmic turn of events. She just cheerfully said, "Get ready everyone! We have a long day of sightseeing ahead of us! That means turning off your game, Shoji."

What was sightseeing compared to the thrills of killing dozens of virtual enemies? Shoji was kind of frustrated that no one understood the meaning of life like he did.

Well, at least this hotel had a nice breakfast buffet. Shoji and Chosaku ate as many breakfast pastries as they could fit on their plates.

Their parents, who were brought up before junk food had been really introduced in Japan, paid the kitchen staff extra to make them some tea and rice for breakfast.

Jun spent most of his time sticking his hands in the vats of eggs, bacon and oatmeal. He got yelled at, and Mom promised to discipline him later. But all the family knew she would never get to it.

After they finished breakfast, they had been planning to leave, but had to duck back in the room to wash off the maple syrup that Jun had somehow gotten in his hair.

THEN they checked out.

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One thing they had not been prepared for was the fact that San Francisco was quite chilly even in summer. It wasn't like anybody was in danger of frostbite, but a sweater might have been nice. However, they had only packed summer clothes.

Weather aside, even Shoji had to admit that this was a pretty place. Chosaku, as he always had to do, made a snide comment about how he couldn't see anything because of the fog.

Mom noticed none of these complaints, however. She was immersed in one of the many pamphlets she had picked up at the hotel.

If she had her way entirely, she would visit every building in the city, and maybe even stop by Oakland to take some pictures of local drug dealers.

That last part was stated by Chosaku, of course. He had no interest in pretty landmarks. All he seemed to care about were the crime-ridden parts of town.

Dad finally suggested a cable car so they wouldn't have to walk to all these places.

So here they were in San Francisco's famous transportation device.

Mom pointed out every building they passed. At the rate she was going, not even newspaper stands would escape her observations. Because, as she saw it, they were SPECIAL newspaper stands because they were located in such a historic place.

Jun was so utterly impressed by his mom's commentary, he fell fast asleep in a matter of minutes. He could get away with so many things just because he happened to be born last!

This was demonstrated as Shoji started to doze off, only to be pinched awake by his mom, who was indignant that someone wasn't listening to her spiel.

But, over-enthusiasm on his mom's part aside, Shoji actually found some of the places they passed by to be quite interesting.

Chosaku, however, was firmly of the opinion that everything "sucked".

After a while, even Shoji began to get bored. He missed his game, which was packed up in the van.

Shoji tried to imagine what the final boss might look like. Maybe it would be green and furry, with antlers sticking out of its head!

No wait, a reptile would be much cooler-looking. Then it could have yellow eyes and pointy teeth!

Shoji forgot momentarily that this was a game appropriate for all ages, and began to construct an imaginary final battle with blood and guts everywhere.

In his imagination, the hero was just about to cut off the bad guy's head (and thus spill more blood) when the cable car suddenly stopped.

"Time for lunch!" Mom said brightly.

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The rest of the day was more of the same. Jun ate too much Ghiradelli chocolate and threw up again, but not much else happened.

Then...finally...they were back at the van. Shoji could finally take another whack at beating the game!

He would have plenty of time. It would still be a couple of hours before they had to stop at a hotel.

Tomorrow they would head off to their next destination: Las Vegas.

Finally! It had taken a while, but Shoji was back at the entrance of the final boss's lair!

He walked into the dark room. This triggered a cut scene where the game's hero lit a torch and looked nervously around. Then the torch light fell on something...something...

HONK!

The sound made everybody in the car jump. Shoji accidentally hit the off switch on his game.

WHY did this always have to happen to him?

But his resentment would have to wait a while. Dad had just sworn under his breath and revved up the car to WAY above the speed limit.

"See? I told you! They followed us all the way here!"

Chosaku snapped out of his sulking, excited at the possiblity of a car chase. Never mind that they were the ones being chased.

Nevertheless, no chase happened as Mom said, "Do you want us all to be KILLED? The least we could do is say hi!"

Chosaku immediately resumed sulking.

But Shoji was interested in what this family his father so despised looked like. Maybe they were really ugly with warts and yellow teeth and stuff! Maybe they'd be so ugly, it would make up for Shoji's game being interrupted at the good part.

The window of the other car rolled down and...

A/N: Oh noez! It's a cliffhanger of doom!

But this will make it all the more fun for the Mr. Manjoume POV chapter.

I guess it's not REALLY a cliffhanger, since you all probably looked on my profile by now. In any case, I might not update for a while, just so I can make sure I have all the backstory straight.


	6. Mr Manjoume and the Lunatic

1A/N: It looks like there's no more backstory for the Saiou siblings! That means maybe my fics can remain unaltered!

This is like the best news I've gotten in weeks. XD It means I can update this AND get new fics written.

However, this chapter might have a slightly darker tone than the previous ones.

Quick note: I'm calling Saiou's dad by his first name in this fic. Of course, he'd usually be called by his last name, but that would cause some confusion.

Disclaimer: If it's a famous thing, I don't own it. That is all.

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DAMMIT!

Mr. Manjoume had had the perfect plan to just spend time with his family on vacation.

And now, thanks to THEM, it might be ruined!

Well, he had to observe the niceties. That meant being nice to the people in that white limo even though they were all complete lunatics.

Said lunatics were now rolling down the front window on the limo, and...

Wow. This was a new low for the family.

Saiou Ichiro, the fifty-year-old patriarch of one of the oldest families in all of Japan, was in the driver's seat, and...

Well, Shoji's whispered remark summed it up quite nicely.

"Okay, why is that guy wearing underwear on his head and bright pink goggles?"

Mr. Manjoume couldn't help but crack a smile. The candor of children was so refreshing sometimes.

Ichiro glared at Mr. Manjoume.

"Is there something about me you find amusing, by any chance?" he said grumpily.

Mr. Manjoume wanted to say something like that if one is going to be dressed like that, one will be laughed at. However, his wife was glaring at him as if silently telling him to be polite.

So all Mr. Manjoume said was, "Um...no. Why would you think that?"

Some nervous giggling came from the back seat of the limo.

Ichiro immediately swiveled his head around and bellowed, "SHUT UP BACK THERE!"

The laughter immediately ceased.

Mr. Manjoume already had a headache, and the car hadn't even been stopped for two minutes.

He tried to weasel his way out of the inevitable by saying, "Well, it was great seeing you, but I'm afraid we must be heading off, and..."

Ichiro cut him off with a loud, "Nonsense! We must have dinner together! There's a restaurant a few kilometers down the road. We must be polite. Right, Takuma?"

Well, there he went again. Ichiro was a middle-aged man, yet felt the need to ask his five-year-old kid's opinion on any and every subject that was brought up.

Well, at any rate, there was no reply from the back seat.

Ichiro tried again.

"Hey, I'm talking to you! You'd better answer!"

Still no answer.

Finally, Ichiro took off his seatbelt, leaned over the back of his seat, and shouted, "ANSWER ME NOW OR THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES!"

Finally, a short, quiet reply from the back of the limo.

"But you told us to be quiet."

"I DID NO SUCH THING!"

"Yes you did."

"Stop telling lies!"

"Whatever..."

Just then, Ichiro seemed to belatedly realize that the Manjoume family was in their van watching all of this.

In a slightly more normal tone of voice, he said to Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume, "So...we hope to see you at the restaurant soon."

And with that, he rolled up the window and sped off down the highway.

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As soon as the van had been started back up, Mr. Manjoume said, "Now do you see why I told you all to stay away from them?"

Mrs. Manjoume, as usual, decided to be sentimental.

"But dear...the poor guy's sick. He can't help it. Have some charity."

"Well," replied Mr. Manjoume, "It's his own fault he's sick. He has an advanced case of syphilis, and he knows it. Yet he refuses to get treatment of any kind. And he wouldn't have gotten it in the first place if he hadn't..."

Mrs. Manjoume was shocked.

"I've told you a million times: don't talk about that stuff in front of the children!"

But it was too late. Shoji's curiosity had been awakened.

"What's syphilis?" he asked.

Chosaku opened his mouth, most likely to give all the gory details to Shoji, but was silenced by a glare from his mother.

Just then, they reached the restaurant. Jun was cranky about the fact that he had to leave the car just as he was falling asleep again.

The evil psychotic family from hell apparently wanted to begin the torture immediately, because they were already sitting at a table.

This portent of doom was lost on Mr. Manjoume's wife. All she said was, "Isn't that nice? They found a place for us!"

When they were all seated, Mr. Manjoume snuck furtive glances over at the other family, just to make sure that they weren't plotting anything.

Ichiro still hadn't removed his underwear "hat" and goggles. This attracted him many odd glances from waiters and other tables.

Every time Ichiro caught someone looking at him, he demanded what exactly they all found funny about him. No one dared answer.

Seated next to Ichiro was his wife, who was half Ichiro's age. Mr. Manjoume hadn't even known Ichiro had brought his wife along. She was a woman of few words, most likely because she didn't want to get on her husband's bad side.

The older kid-Takuma, was it?-was immersed in a very thick book that had a title in German. It looked to be one of those Freud books again.

Mr. Manjoume was at a loss to see how a five-year-old could enjoy reading such heavy material. Then again...with that particular family...it sort of made sense.

Finally, the younger kid was sitting at the far end of the table, accompanied by that servant Mrs. Manjoume had met the night before.

Yep, that family was doomed, all right.

And the Manjoumes were doomed due to the fact that they just had to be in their presence.

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Well, at least they got through the night and survived.

Ichiro got drunk and started singing "We are the Champions" in a loud, off-key voice, but not much else of note happened.

It was eerie how quiet those kids were, though.

At the Manjoume table, Jun was acting like a normal kid. His face was messy, he ignored his utensils, and chewed with his mouth open.

It was disgusting, but it was what most kids did.

Not the kids at the other table. Even the younger one had better manners than many adults.

As soon as it was polite, Mr. Manjoume paid the bill and rushed his family out to the van.

The boys had plenty to talk about the rest of the way to the hotel. Despite the age gap, they all thought underwear was the most hilarious concept ever invented, especially underwear that was worn like a hat.

But while plenty of laughter came from the back seats, Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume were absorbed in their own thoughts.

Mr. Manjoume decided right then and there that no group of weirdos would ruin his family's time together.

Hopefully, they wouldn't see Ichiro and company again, and they could put this incident behind them and have fun.

Or at least, that's what Mr. Manjoume fervently hoped.

A/N: Okay, that's one of my goals fulfilled! Now I have to get that new fic up. Fortunately, I think I can get the first part up tonight.


	7. Jun HATES Bathtime!

A/N: I was thinking of writing the Vegas stop in Jun's POV, but decided it would be funnier when told by an older person. So this chapter is just a little filler chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own GX. No additional information will be given...

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That old guy was wearing UNDERWEAR! On his HEAD!

Jun was about to crack a rib from laughing. Even though his brothers had moved on to other activities by now, Jun still found even the slightest thought of underwear funny enough to keep his mind occupied the whole night.

But even though it was possible for Jun to laugh the whole night, he wouldn't be allowed to do so. The van had just pulled in to a hotel parking lot.

Mommy lifted Jun out of his car seat.

"Your hair is getting a bit dirty...how about we give you a bath tonight, sweetie?"

Bath? BATH?

The bathtub was Jun's arch-nemesis, and had been so for as long as he could remember.

Jun started wailing so loudly that Mommy was forced to put him down.

Jun was now sure that once again, Mommy would be nice and not make him have a bath. Iori made him have a bath EVERY NIGHT, and he had been hoping Mommy would give him a break from that.

But apparently, Mommy had been hanging around Iori too much.

"I'm sorry, but you have to have a bath sometime. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, though!"

Well, there was really nothing more Jun could do now. He would just have to wait until they got to the room to act.

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For a while, Mommy seemed to have forgotten about the bath. She spent a while helping Daddy bring the suitcases in from the van.

Jun was sitting on the floor of the room, playing with his toy plane again. This time, his tummy didn't hurt, so he didn't have to stop playing.

Eventually, though, he got tired of the toy and reached over to put it on a nearby chair.

Then, Mommy noticed that he was done playing.

"Oh good, you're at a stopping point!" she said. "I didn't want to interrupt your playtime. But now you're done, so we can have that bath!"

Jun immediately restarted the wails of protest. He raced around the room, trying to find any means of escape.

He soon located the door that went into the hall. But just as he realized that the doorknob was too high for him to reach, Mommy picked him up.

"That's not the way to the bathroom, silly!" she laughed.

Now Jun was in a dilemma indeed. He could always escape by hitting or biting. But he usually saved his biting for Iori, because she was an evil witch. Mommy truly didn't seem to be aware that Jun hated baths so much.

So violence seemed to be out of the question, at least for this one situation.

He didn't know enough words to just say, "I don't like baths." Most kids his age did, but Iori said that Jun had something called, "developmental delays", which made it so he didn't know as many words as other two-year-olds. Not being able to talk was very frustrating at times like this.

So all Jun could do was wail, "No! No! NO!" over and over again as Mommy carried him into the bathroom.

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Well, here Jun was.

Mommy had undressed him and was now filling up the bathtub.

Fortunately, the faucet wasn't letting a lot of water out, so the tub was filling up really slowly. This gave Jun some additional time to plot an escape.

The bathroom was a small room, with no windows. The only way out was the door.

Fortunately, Mommy had left the door open a crack, to let the steam from the bath out the room.

So Jun waited until Mommy's back was turned, and bolted out the door and into the main room.

At first, no one said anything. Then Chosaku started laughing.

"You know, it'll be kind of hard to escape to anywhere when you don't have any clothes on, Jun..."

Oh, right. Jun had forgotten about that small detail.

Mommy used this opportunity to drag Jun back in to the bathroom. The tub had been filled, and Jun had no choice but to go into the tub.

Okay. So Mommy had succeeded in putting Jun in the tub of water.

But that didn't have to mean she would be able to succeed in actually giving Jun a bath.

Currently, Mommy was getting out the shampoo. She was still going on and on about how fun this bath would be.

But so far, Jun thought this bath was WORSE than the ones at home.

This hotel didn't have his favorite bubble bath, and the tub was awkwardly shaped and uncomfortable to sit in.

But...as much as Jun hated to admit it...he was trapped. Now it was on to the worst part of bathtime...getting his hair washed.

Iori used a special shampoo that didn't make Jun's hair tangly, and didn't hurt when he got it in his eyes. However, the mean hotel people didn't have that kind of shampoo in the little bottles.

What was more, Mommy did NOT do a good job at washing hair. She kept getting the shampoo into Jun's eyes, so he was wondering if his eyes would ever stop stinging.

Finally, Jun had had enough.

He bit Mommy as she was getting shampoo in his eyes for about the hundredth time.

Jun realized he had to act quickly before Mommy decided to punish him.

So he looked up at Mommy with the most innocent face he could muster. The fact that his eyes were tearing up from the shampoo helped him in this.

Fortunately, it worked. Mommy immediately started apologizing, saying that she was a horrible mommy for making Jun do something he didn't want to do.

And then, she rinsed Jun's hair and let him out of the tub early.

Jun was happy. Another victory for him! Maybe he wouldn't have to take another bath for the rest of this vacation!

He went to sleep almost immediately after Mommy dressed him. It took her three tries to get the diaper on correctly, but at least she was learning.

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A/N: Like I said...filler chapter.

Soon, though, the family will be hitting Vegas! I'm also thinking of writing a chapter where they get lost in the deserts of Nevada.


	8. Chosaku hits Vegas: Part One

A/N: Sorry for the long delay. Like I have said many times in my profile, I have bad writer's block. But I had some free time, so I decided I might as well try updating something. And winter break is coming up soon, so maybe I can do even more updating then. I hope so.

Disclaimer: I don't own GX, and I especially don't own Las Vegas!

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Chosaku was in heaven! He had been forced to stop at yet another embarrassing tourist trap, when his whole family had suddenly vanished into thin air. Other people might have been worried about this development, but not Chosaku. He immediately seized the opportunity and bought tickets for a heavy metal rock concert, which was conveniently located next door.

The first, almost painfully loud, notes of music were just starting when...

"Chosaku, it's time to wake up!"

Chosaku only partially registered these words as he pulled a pillow over his head. He still wasn't quite sure what was the dream and what was reality.

But the confusion was quickly cleared up as Mom pulled the pillow off Chosaku's head.

"Chosaku, it's TIME to wake UP! We've been waiting on you for half an hour. Look, both your brothers are awake!"

Chosaku opened one eye and realized that, despite what Mom said, neither of his brothers was much more alert than he was. Jun was sleepily blinking from his perch on Mom's hip, and Shoji was sitting at the table, his face about to slump into his bowl of cereal.

Chosaku mumbled something about "just a few more minutes" and turned his face toward the wall. This made Mom finally lose some patience. Just moments later, Chosaku yelped as the blankets were abruptly yanked off his body. He finally decided to get out of bed before Mom started tickling him or something

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A bit more than an hour later, they were on the road again. Not much happened for a while, but they started to run into a traffic jam around noon. It seemed they weren't the only family who was planning to visit Las Vegas.

Chosaku, caustic as always, said, "Hey, I don't think we're going slow enough. Is it possible to get the speed down to half a kilometer per hour?"

Dad, who wasn't amused, growled through his teeth, "You're not HELPING, Chosaku, so be quiet!"

Just then, the van creaked to a total stop for about the tenth time in the past five minutes or so.

Shoji cheerfully pointed out that maybe Chosaku jinxed it.

The only response he got was an assortment of eye-rolls and sighs of exasperation. Or, in Jun's case, some heavy-duty thumb sucking.

The van moved forward a few dozen meters, only to come to yet another stop after several seconds.

Okay, that was it. If Chosaku's insightful wit wouldn't be appreciated, maybe he should just go to sleep. Who knows- maybe he'd get that morning's dream back.

Alas, Chosaku had no dreams that he could remember. Then again, maybe he wasn't asleep long enough to even have any dreams. For he couldn't have been asleep more than an hour or so before he was woken up most unpleasantly. Apparently, Jun was also bored. And one thing that they had all learned by now was that Jun loved to annoy people when he was bored.

Chosaku swatted Jun's hand away and muttered, "Stop pinching me, you little brat..."

Fortunately for Chosaku, Mom was too busy consulting a map to hear what he said. But Jun certainly heard. Chosaku wasn't quite sure if Jun understood the insult, but he most likely did pick up on the fact that Chosaku was annoyed by the pinching.

So Jun did what he always did when he found out he was annoying somebody-he did the annoying activity even more.

After he finally pinched Chosaku hard enough to cause a bruise, the older boy lost any vestiges of patience that had been possibly remaining. In his utter irritation, he did something quite unwise-he pinched Jun's chubby little arm hard enough to make the toddler scream in pain.

This had the immediate effect that none of Chosaku's protests could possibly have. Dad slammed on the breaks, probably much to the annoyance of the car behind them.

Both parents started in on an angry and shocked rant about how Jun was too young to know any better, so THERE WOULD BE CONSEQUENCES!

The first of these consequences was changing the seating arrangements. Five minutes later, Chosaku had been banished to the very back of the van, where he was accompanied by all the suitcases that wouldn't fit in the trunk. Jun, meanwhile, was happily sucking on a lollipop, which was consolation for Chosaku's apparent victimization of him.

Oh well. At least the traffic wasn't as bad now that lunch break was over for a lot of people.

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After a few more minutes, the Manjoumes finally stopped at yet another family restaurant on the city outskirts for a belated lunch.

Chosaku really wished that more people spoke Japanese in America. Sure, he was supposed to be taking English classes at school, but he kept failing them all. It was a headache for Chosaku to simply place a meal order in English.

But somehow he managed, although he had to ask his parents what half the words on the menu meant.

For two hours after lunch, Mom and Dad were preoccupied with driving over the same streets again and again, trying to find their hotel.

Could they get any MORE embarrassing? Chosaku was sure that _he_ could find the way easily, even if he had trouble reading street signs in English. However, neither Mom nor Dad wanted to listen to Chosaku's "helpful" comments.

Eventually, they had to stop at a GAS STATION and ask for DIRECTIONS! Chosaku made himself as inconspicuous during that time, so no one would think he was related to these dorky adults who couldn't find a simple hotel.

Fortunately, they were able to get good directions, and they found the hotel, which was located on a street they had driven over five times.

Chosaku buried his face in his hands in sheer embarrassment. He now knew that he _had_ seen the hotel on one of their previous trips down the street, but had the Parental Units listened to him? NO.

As Mom and Dad found the room and started unpacking, Chosaku was staring out of the room's window moodily. Said window had a nice view of the building next door.

It looked like one of the casinos that Vegas was famous for. Chosaku vowed to sneak away from his parents at some point and check it out.

Well, technically, Chosaku was pretty sure that people his age weren't allowed to participate in gambling, but what the casino staff didn't know wouldn't hurt them, right?

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A/N: This chapter has so many events in it, I split it up into two parts. The next part will be about Chosaku's exciting (albeit underage) adventures in the casino, and anywhere else he might wander.

I know it sort of breaks up the one-chapter-per-character thing, but the sequence will still be the same. After Chosaku's part is done, Mrs. Manjoume's part will be next in line.


	9. Chosaku hits Vegas: Part Two

1A/N: Just one more final exam tomorrow, and then I'm free for three and a half weeks of break! That's a good thing, too, because I've been having to pay more attention to school than to fanfiction lately.

I have taken the time to think up a few new ideas for this fic. I have another character cameo in mind, and expect everyone's favorite goggle-wearing, syphilitic maniac to make another appearance soon. Oh yeah, there's Takuma too. Can't forget him.

Just a reminder: This takes place in 1991, so while the Siegfried and Roy show isn't running now, it was at its height of popularity when the fic takes place.

Another reminder: when people are speaking in English, it's in italics (except when italics are being used for emphasis in thoughts and stuff). Okay, I'll shut up now.

Disclaimer: I own neither GX nor any Las Vegas attractions mentioned in this chapter. I did do a bit of research on said attractions, so I'll try my best to not put any major anachronisms/inaccuracies in here. Please forgive me if some slip in here anyway.

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It was nearly dinnertime, and Chosaku was bored out of his mind. Mom and Dad were busy looking at what looked to be hundreds of brochures obtained from the hotel's lobby. Most likely, all the said brochures detailed "kid-friendly" activities that would make Chosaku want to hurl. Hey, he was almost a MAN! He didn't want to be lumped with his kid brothers!

Chosaku's fears were confirmed at dinnertime. In the middle of the meal, Mom said, "Guess what fun thing we're going to do tonight?"

Chosaku crossed his fingers, hoping beyond hope that it wasn't that dumb show with the two guys and the tigers.

Mom continued, "We're going to see Siegfried and Roy! Doesn't that sound exciting?"

Chosaku facefaulted. Mom asked him if anything was wrong.

"No, nothing's wrong at all," snapped Chosaku as he picked himself up from the floor, "Everything is absolutely perfect."

Mom was oblivious to the sarcasm. This may have had something to do with the fact that Jun had eaten his food too quickly and was starting to gag yet again.

As Mom hurried Jun off to the bathroom, Chosaku started plotting his escape. For about two milliseconds, he had actually considered being nice and enduring the magic show. But then he realized that it was a bit dumb to even _consider_. He had every right to some REAL entertainment, and he wouldn't rest until he found it!

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After what seemed to be a million years of Mom and Dad getting lost again, they finally made it to...um...what exactly DID that sign say? Chosaku had never seen that word in English textbooks.

He attempted sounding the word out.

"Mir-ah-gee?" he tried.

Mom promptly corrected him by saying, "No, it says '_Mirage_'."

Heh. That was a funny word. But what was Chosaku thinking? He couldn't let that word distract him! He had to plan his escape soon before he had to face the magic show of utter peril and cheesiness!

Fortunately for Chosaku, the room that was the site of the show was extremely noisy and crowded. It would be easy for him to lose himself in the crowd.

As if sensing what Chosaku was thinking, Mom said, "Stay close to me, boys. You don't want to get lost!"

But there was one flaw in Mom's plan-she had three children and only two hands. She was using one arm to hold Jun, and the other was guiding Shoji by the shoulder.

For just a split second, Chosaku reveled in the fact that Mom considered him old and mature enough to be responsible for himself.

Then he shook his head. Maturity be damned-he was out of here! When Mom was occupied finding their seats, Chosaku did a U-turn and ran back out to the lobby. Well, he walked briskly at least. It was too crowded for him to do actual running.

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Finally! Freedom!

Now, all Chosaku had to do was figure out which attraction would be best for an almost-adult like him.

There was one room where people were engrossed in playing table games like poker. Chosaku shook his head. There was no way he would ever be caught DEAD playing a card game! They were for old people!

A bit farther down, there was a room that contained slot machines. Now THAT was more like it!

There was a large sign outside the room. Chosaku took a few minutes to try to decipher the English lettering on the sign. The basic gist seemed to be this:

"_Attention! This casino follows Las Vegas gambling laws. You must be twenty-one or over to enjoy our slot machines!"_

So? Chosaku looked twenty-one, right? Okay, sure, his facial hair hadn't come in yet, and he was only about 160 centimeters (5'3'') in height, and his voice was only just beginning to crack, and...

Chosaku reassured himself that a lot of adult men were short and didn't sport facial hair. So all he had to do was keep his mouth shut.

With that thought, he walked up to a slot machine and started putting quarters in. It was a good thing he had gotten a lot of spending money when Dad converted their yen into dollars at the airport.

About five minutes in, the machine had already consumed half of Chosaku's quarters. But he wasn't planning to leave anytime soon. He was glued to his spot. In fact, one might almost say he was hypnotized by the movement and colors of the machine.

He had almost run out when suddenly he managed to get a row of matching symbols. It was hardly the jackpot, but at least Chosaku got five of his quarters back. It didn't occur to him that maybe the machine had meant to do that so he wouldn't have to leave.

He was gathering up the small amount of loot when he heard voices.

"_So who are we looking for again?"_

Someone made rustling noises with some sheets of paper.

"_Thirteen-year-old kid who got away from his family. He's from Japan, but can speak a bit of English. Most likely snuck away to one of the casino rooms. Dark hair and eyes. Short."_

Hey, Chosaku was NOT SHORT! He just hadn't finished growing yet.

Hey...wait a minute...they were on to him! His parents had noticed his disappearance quicker than he had anticipated.

He had to get out of here!

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After a few minutes of running, Chosaku looked over his shoulder.

No one seemed to be following him. Good.

Just to be on the safe side, he ducked into the first doorway he saw.

It looked to be a restaurant of some sort. People in formalwear were sitting at tables. Some people were eating or talking, but most of them were...

Drinking! Cool, this place had alcohol! Chosaku had always wanted to try it, but his stupid parents never let him even have a sip of wine at parties.

Chosaku promptly walked over to the bar and ordered a beer.

The barkeeper seemed a bit reluctant to fill the order. He asked, "_How old are you, young man_?"

Chosaku replied, "_Twenty-one."_

Hey, you never knew. Maybe the guy would buy it.

But the barkeeper still didn't seem convinced. He then asked, "_Do you have a reservation?"_

Chosaku said that he did. For all he knew, he could have, because he wasn't quite sure what a "_reservation"_ was.

The barkeeper nodded and went into a back room. He returned not with a beer, but with some soda and a bowl of bar snacks.

"_These are just to whet your appetite, until you decide which kind of beer you want_," he explained.

Well, it sounded fair enough. But, unbeknownst to Chosaku, the barkeeper knew more than he was letting on.

While Chosaku was occupied with deciphering the menu, the barkeeper went to a phone and called security.

"_I think I have the kid you were looking for. He actually thought he fooled me into thinking he was twenty-one!"_

Some chuckling came from the other side of the phone line, then a guard answered, "_Excellent. I'll go tell his parents now."_

Ten minutes later, Chosaku was still pondering the long list of beer names, oblivious to the fact that he had been found out.

He had just decided to pick a beer type randomly when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He thought it was the barkeeper asking if he was ready to order, so he turned around.

It wasn't the barkeeper. It was Dad. And he didn't look happy at all.

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The rest of the night was one Chosaku would have liked to erase from his memory. It wasn't that his parents screamed at him until they were hoarse. In fact, that might have been more bearable than what they were actually doing.

After they oh-so-politely informed Chosaku that he would be grounded for a month when they got back to Japan, they drove back to the other hotel in icy silence. Chosaku had been banished to the backseat again.

Shoji, on the other hand, was far from silent.

"You missed it, Chosaku! It was really cool! There were all these lights and stuff, and the tigers stood on their hind legs and roared, and there were all these cool magic tricks! Jun got a bit scared, though. That was when we noticed you weren't there. Too bad, because I think you would've liked it! Because it was really, really, really..."

"SHUT UP!" Chosaku finally growled. Shoji did as he said, but didn't seem too perturbed.

Chosaku grumbled as he thought that maybe he should have just gone to the dumb show anyway. It would have been worth it to see Jun be scared of the tigers.


	10. Mrs Manjoume Finds Help: Part One

A/N: Another two-parter. This chapter will set of the plot of the mini-arc, and the next chapter will have more details about what all goes on in the Saiou family. I hope people don't mind these two-parters...I'll find a way to switch POV's in the next chapter if that's what you all want.

Disclaimer: I don't own either GX or the random stretches of desert that are in this chapter.

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It was the middle of the night, and Mrs. Manjoume couldn't sleep. She was wondering just where she had gone wrong in her dealings with her kids, particularly Chosaku.

She had been sure that she was finally getting through to her oldest kid. Sure, that might not have been evident to most people, but Mrs. Manjoume had thought that maybe her maternal instincts had noticed a change.

Obviously, she had been deluding herself this whole time. Chosaku had just deserted the family after Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume had worked hard to find an activity the whole family could enjoy. Mrs. Manjoume found this to be disappointing at best, and heartbreaking at worst.

Mr. Manjoume had reassured her that it was simply a case of teenage rebellion on Chosaku's part. Nevertheless, deep down, Mrs. Manjoume was still blaming herself. A good parent would have foreseen that an event like this might happen. Mrs. Manjoume had always thought she was a good parent before. Now, she wasn't so sure.

She just hoped that Jun could forgive her for any wrong she had done him. He had been unusually cranky at times during this vacation. Now Mrs. Manjoume wondered if that was because she had been too strict with him. She would have to try harder to keep him happy by any means possible.

As for Chosaku...that might be a lot more difficult. Mrs. Manjoume would have to keep a closer eye on him.

Just to be on the safe side, she looked over to the bed on the opposite side of the hotel room, where Chosaku and Shoji slept (Jun was in a collapsible travel crib). It didn't look like Chosaku was doing anything other than sleeping, though Mrs. Manjoume did notice that he had scooted over as far away from Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume's bed as possible.

With that reassurance, Mrs. Manjoume tried once again to fall asleep. She must have dozed off at some point, because it was 5 AM when she next looked at the clock. Already, she and her husband had to get out of bed and start getting the kids ready for another day of traveling.

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Since Las Vegas was so close to the Arizona state line, Mr. And Mrs. Manjoume had decided that the Grand Canyon would be the next stop on their itinerary.

If they took the main road, they'd only have to drive 250 kilometers or so-they could make it to the Grand Canyon National Park a bit after lunchtime. However, there was also a high possibility of traffic in that route. Mrs. Manjoume really didn't want to get in another fight with Chosaku, so she had convinced Mr. Manjoume to take an alternate series of roads. This route would loop around farther south.

Mr. Manjoume wasn't too excited at the prospect of driving through a desert in July, but Mrs. Manjoume had heard so much about deserts from American cartoons. She was dying to see what the real thing looked like.

And now, she could safely say that it didn't look like much at all. There was the occasional intriguing cactus or rock formation, but mostly it was an expanse of sand and stunted plants.

Oh well. At least this was nothing like the road going into Vegas. It was so quiet and remote. There were hardly any other cars to get in their way.

Unfortuntely, the family would soon find that this isolation had a flip side.

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They were in what could safely be called "the middle of nowhere" when the van's engine started making weird noises.

Mr. and Mrs. Manjoume just ignored it at first. After all, it was a brand-new van. They might not have known too much about cars, but they could surmise that new cars didn't have a big tendency to have problems.

So they just turned on the air conditioning up a bit to disguise the noise. For an hour or so, that fixed the problem.

They were about 100 kilometers away from the Grand Canyon when they decided to take a lunch break. It was almost noon, and the kids were getting restless.

Lunch went well enough. There were no food fights, spilled drinks, or other such complications. Jun did get upset when he realized that the dill pickles on his sandwich had been put on horizontally instead of vertically. But Mrs. Manjoume fixed the problem immediately, and a potential crisis was averted.

After everyone was done, Mrs. Manjoume packed up the cooler in the trunk while Mr. Manjoume went into the driver's seat to start the van back up.

However, by the time Mrs. Manjoume had closed the trunk door, there was no evidence that the engine was running. She angrily walked over to Mr. Manjoume.

"I thought I told you to start the car back up! Why aren't you doing that?" she exclaimed at him.

Mr. Manjoume threw his arms up to denote helplessness and replied defensively, "Well, it won't start!"

Men could be so clumsy sometimes, thought Mrs. Manjoume. They thought they knew everything about machinery, but more often than not their wives had to fix stuff for them.

So she asked Mr. Manjoume if he had checked the engine. She was not surprised in the least when he shook his head.

"Well, go check it then!" snapped Mrs. Manjoume. It was over forty degrees Celsius in this desert, and Mrs. Manjoume wanted nothing more than to get back on the road in the air-conditioned haven that was the van.

Mr. Manjoume obediently got out of the car and lifted the engine hood. He instantly recoiled as a cloud of acrid smoke issued from the car's innards.

"It looks like it overheated! We're in the desert in the middle of summer-we should have probably known something like this would happen!" he called over.

Now Mrs. Manjoume REALLY got mad. She took this last remark as an insult at her road-choosing abilities.

"Well, can you FIX it?" she yelled back.

All Mr. Manjoume said was, "I'm not sure. You stay with the kids until I figure out what needs to be done."

Mrs. Manjoume agreed, if only because it would mean they would stop bickering.

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It was nearly two hours later. Mrs. Manjoume hadn't thought the temperature could get any higher, but it evidently had.

In an attempt to distract the kids, Mrs. Manjoume had been playing endless rounds of games such as Go Fish and Hangman. Chosaku had only participated for about five minutes before declaring the activities to be "stupid". He was now aimlessly kicking around random clusters of tumbleweed.

Shoji and Jun were more easily entertained, but were starting to grow listless from the extreme heat. Mrs. Manjoume was making all the kids drink as much water as they could to keep hydrated, but couldn't really do anything about the heat.

Jun repeatedly tried to take off his clothes. At first, Mrs. Manjoume hadn't allowed it, because she was worried about sunburn. Even SHE could tell that Jun's skin was the kind that could get nasty burns easily. However, Jun had started another tantrum, so now Mrs. Manjoume had let him strip down to his T-shirt and diaper.

And then, to make matters even worse, Mr. Manjoume came back with his car engine report.

"It looks like we'll have to visit a repair shop. So there are two choices: we wait for another car to drive by, or we go get help."

Even Jun knew that the road was too isolated for the first option to be very plausible.

"No car!" he said proudly while pointing off to an indeterminate point in the distance.

Mrs. Manjoume was too distracted to even praise Jun for what he obviously believed was an astute observation.

They eventually decided that Mrs. Manjoume would be the one to try to find help. Mr. Manjoume had wanted to be the one to do so, but Mrs. Manjoume felt more than a bit of responsibility for their predicament, so she wanted to try her best to fix it herself.

So off Mrs. Manjoume went. Mr. Manjoume stayed behind to watch over the kids and make a last-ditch (and futile) attempt to fix the engine.

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For once, luck seemed to be on Mrs. Manjoume's side. She had only been walking for twenty minutes or so before she saw a car in the distance. She hoped beyond hope that she could get help from the occupants. If she walked any farther, she'd probably get heatstroke.

She waved frantically at it, and the driver somehow noticed her and drove her way.

It was only when the car had almost reached her that she noticed that it was a white limo. More specifically, it was a VERY FAMILIAR-LOOKING white limo.

Well...her husband wouldn't be too happy about this...but it was their last chance, really.

The limo pulled up next to Mrs. Manjoume. This time, it was the wife who was in the driver's seat. The reason for this became apparent as soon as the window was rolled down.

"Are you SURE she's not an alien?" a familiar loud voice said from the passenger's seat, "The aliens are going to invade at 3:38!"

One of the kids in the back seat reminded Ichiro that it was 3:51, so maybe the aliens wouldn't arrive after all.

"No, they're just late!" insisted Ichiro. No one saw fit to argue with him further.

Mrs. Manjoume cleared her throat and said, "Excuse me, but could you please call a tow truck for our van? The engine overheated, and we need to get it to a repair store."

As if Ichiro had not been accusing Mrs. Manjoume of being an alien seconds before, he genially said, "Of course we'll help you out! We'll even pay for the repairs, since we're just nice like that. Right, Takuma?"

An obedient yet slightly exasperated "Yes, Father," came from the backseat.

Fortunately for the kid, Ichiro didn't hear the note of annoyance. He told Mrs. Manjoume that she could sit in the back seat as well while they drove over to the Manjoumes' van.

"There's plenty of room back there, so don't worry!" he reassured Mrs. Manjoume as she was looking for a place to sit, "You can sit between Takuma and...um...the girl, whatever her name is..."

"Mizuchi," prompted his wife.

Ichiro glared at the young woman and shouted, "I KNEW that, you fool! Don't correct me ever again! Now I just figured out that the aliens changed their invasion time to 3:59, so we have to hurry if we want to outrun them. Here, just to be safe, everyone wear these!"

He passed out tinfoil hats to everyone in the car, including the servant and Mrs. Manjoume.

'Well, this drive should be interesting,' thought Mrs. Manjoume as she dutifully put the foil hat on and fastened her seatbelt. What KIND of interesting remained to be seen.


	11. Mrs Manjoume Finds Help: Part Two

A/N: Since all the alerts are disabled on this site YET AGAIN, I was thinking about waiting until they're back up to update anything. But I decided I would update anyway. I can still read reviews, but I have to wait until the review section displays them...

But on the bright side, I won't get an alert which tells me I just put in a new chapter. I really don't get why they have THAT alert.

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't ask, don't care.

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Ichiro seemed to have forgotten about the aliens for the moment. During the five minutes it took to locate the Manjoume family's van, he just sat still and let his wife do the driving.

When they reached the van, it seemed deserted. Then Mrs. Manjoume realized that everyone was probably on the other side, where they couldn't be seen from the limo.

She got out of the car and walked over and, sure enough, there they were. It was immediately obvious that Mr. Manjoume had even less parenting expertise than his wife.

Jun had somehow shed his diaper and was running around with only his shirt on, screaming like a wild monkey. Someone had gotten into the box of cookies that were going to be tomorrow's snack, had eaten all the contents, and left the box, wrapping, and a few crumbs scattered on the ground.

Chosaku was sitting a few meters away, trying to use a magnifying glass to set fire to something. Shoji was really the only kid who was behaving. He had gotten back into the car and was playing a game again.

And what was Mr. Manjoume doing during all this chaos? He was stretched out on a towel placed on the sand; fast asleep.

All right, enough was enough! Mrs. Manjoume stalked over angrily and shook her husband by the shoulder. He woke up quickly, and was rightfully embarrassed about the situation Mrs. Manjoume had discovered.

Mrs. Manjoume thought about scolding him, but decided fixing the van should be their top priority. So she simply said, "Dear, I found some help."

The surprise on Mr. Manjoume's face clearly indicated that he hadn't been expecting finding the help so quickly. All he could say in return was, "Do they have a phone?"

Mrs. Manjoume informed him that yes, they had a phone installed on the dashboard of their car, and were calling a tow truck this very moment.

Mr. Manjoume got up and muttered, "I guess I should go thank these people, then..." and walked over to the side of the van where the limo was parked.

He ran back to Mrs. Manjoume in approximately three milliseconds. She had never seen him look so pale in all the sixteen years they had been married.

"Honey, you didn't...I must be seeing things," he stammered out, "Please tell me I'm seeing things!"

Mrs. Manjoume rolled her eyes.

"Not this again. Dear, I've told you once if I've told you a million times. They're a family with small children just like us. Look, I rode in their car, and I came back all in one piece! What, do you think they're suddenly all going to put on hockey masks and wield chainsaws like that guy in the horror movies?"

Mr. Manjoume didn't have to say that yes, he DID think that. The expression on his face sufficed.

As if she hadn't noticed that, Mrs. Manjoume continued, "Well, get over it, because it'll get dark in just a couple of hours, and the repair shop will be closing. We can't go get our van until next morning. Therefore, we'll be camping out with this PERFECTLY NICE family tonight. They helped us-the least we can do is give them dinner!"

Mrs. Manjoume then walked away to get out the dinner supplies, but not before Mr. Manjoume whimpered melodramatically and slowly sank to his knees.

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As Mrs. Manjoume was getting a package of hot dogs out of the cooler, she noticed Ichiro staring intently at a book of matches.

She walked over to him and said, "Excuse me, but could I have those? I need to get the fire started so it'll be ready to cook stuff by dinnertime."

If Ichiro had heard her, he gave no indication of it. He continued frowning intently at the small packet, then he held it up to his ear.

Mrs. Manjoume was just the tiniest bit freaked out. She asked, "May I ask what you're doing with those?"

Ichiro glared at her and put his finger to his lips.

"Ssh!" he whispered, "I can't hear when you're talking like that!"

Mrs. Manjoume faltered. "Um...hear what?" she asked cautiously.

Ichiro looked scandalized.

"I can't just tell anyone!" he exclaimed in shock, "It's top-secret!"

Fortunately, Ichiro's wife intervened by walking over and reaching for the matches in Ichiro's hand. She told Ichiro that he would have plenty of time to listen to their own matchbooks later.

"And that'll be better anyway, dear," she reasoned, "Because you don't know that matchbook. It could be giving you false information for all you know!"

She shot Mrs. Manjoume a look over Ichiro's shoulder that seemed to say, "I'm an expert at playing along with this stuff by now; let me handle it."

And so she was. Ichiro grumbled and complained for a few seconds, but he eventually did hand over the matches.

When Mrs. Manjoume's back was turned, she raised an eyebrow. O-kaay, that was a bit unusual. But all families had weird people! And just because Ichiro was weird didn't mean he wasn't a good person, right?

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Nothing much else of note happened while dinner was being prepared. The two Saiou children tried to play with Jun, but he was too young to understand their game ideas. Then the two walked over to Chosaku and Shoji, but they were too OLD. So in the end, Takuma and Mizuchi sat off by themselves and conversed. What they were talking about, Mrs. Manjoume hadn't a clue.

Ichiro spent most of his time examining every square inch of a bag of potato chips. His wife informed Mrs. Manjoume that he was probably checking it for poison. Even though Ichiro didn't even bother to open the bag, he was apparently satisfied by the outside of the bag, because he put it back in its original place near the fire.

Mrs. Manjoume noted with pity that Ichiro had a distinct, kind of shuffling limp when he walked. It looked like her husband's theories about the syphilis might be true after all.

But she didn't have much time to dwell on that. She was pretty busy setting up dinner for ten people (including the Saious' servant). The servant did help, so that definitely made things easier. Somehow, they managed to assemble everything in an adequate manner, and dinner was soon served.

Dinner also went by uneventfully, mainly because everyone was too busy eating to do anything else.

After dinner, Ichiro promptly went to sleep. Mrs. Manjoume decided that now was as good a time as any to get to know those adorable children of his. So, while Ichiro was snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Mrs. Manjoume walked over to where the older kid was.

Takuma was lying on his stomach, reading yet another one of those thick books with the aid of a flashlight, since the sun had almost finished setting.

Mrs. Manjoume kneeled down next to the five-year-old and brightly said, "Hi! What are you reading? Is it interesting?"

Takuma mumbled something in response. Obviously, he was too absorbed in his book to pay much attention to Mrs. Manjoume. But Mrs. Manjoume was persistent.

"Come on-I'm interested to see what that book is about! Obviously, it must be a good book if you're so hooked on it!"

Finally, Takuma heard her. He carefully marked his place with a bookmark, and flipped the book over so that Mrs. Manjoume could see the title. The book was called "A Brief History of Time", and it was by Stephen Hawking.

Mrs. Manjoume's reaction was like this: O.O

"You read Stephen Hawking?" she asked faintly.

Takuma nodded.

"Yeah...he's funny and I like the pictures," he replied.

"But...isn't that a bit complex for you?" Mrs. Manjoume inquired.

Takuma shook his head.

Mrs. Manjoume backed up quickly. Obviously, she was nowhere NEAR academic enough to keep this kid entertained. Her expertise was in the business field, not quantum theory!

Meanwhile, Takuma had gone back to where he had left off in the book. He looked happier being left alone, anyway.

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Mrs. Manjoume then tried seeing what Mizuchi was up to.

She was also sitting by herself, playing with a doll.

Mrs. Manjoume repeated the same attempts at socializing that she had with Takuma. Fortunately, Mizuchi seemed to be a bit more receptive. She handed her doll over to Mrs. Manjoume so they could get acquainted.

"Her name is Snowball," she told Mrs. Manjoume.

Mrs. Manjoume played along, even though she thought the name was unusual.

"Hi, Snowball!" she said.

"I named her after my cat," Mizuchi continued.

"Well, that's nice of you!" Mrs. Manjoume answered warmly.

Mizuchi looked down and said, "Daddy killed Snowball the Cat because he said she was a Russian spy. I miss her, so that's why I named the doll after her."

Well...this was certainly an unexpected turn. Mrs. Manjoume abruptly changed the subject by saying it was just about time for bed. And so it was.

But once again, when everyone was tucked into sleeping bags and fast asleep, Mrs. Manjoume found it almost impossible to do the same.

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A/N: Coming up next chapter:

We get back to humor as the Manjoume family finally reaches the Grand Canyon!


	12. Shoji Meets Mr Calculator

A/N: I finally found a chunk of time just big enough for me to update something. And it might take a while for me to update after this, because I'm fresh out of ideas. I'll continue to consider the various ideas that reviewers have sent, however.

Because I like everything to be as accurate as possible, I'm going to Google a map of the Grand Canyon to consult while I write this chapter. It does help a bit that I've actually been there, but that was several years ago. So please don't kill me if I get something wrong! (Cowers)

Disclaimer: I don't own GX, and I think it would be very insulting to say that the Grand Canyon is owned by anybody at all.

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Shoji couldn't sleep. How could he when there was still that final boss to defeat?

At least he now knew what it looked like. And, he had to admit, it was a bit disappointing. It was really just your average stereotypical monster-the images in Shoji's imagination had been much more exciting.

But what the boss lacked in original design, it made up for in level of difficulty. Shoji kept having the darned thing almost beaten, only to stumble into a fireball or run out of ammunition for his own character.

Yet Shoji would triumph over this mass of pixels someday! He had to...he was the game MASTER! Yep, even better than Chosaku.

And with that happy thought, the game MASTER tried his best to go back to sleep.

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The next morning, there was no sign of that weirdo family. Apparently, they had gone their own merry way in the middle of the night. No one in the Manjoume family really pretended to be sad, although Mom did say she wished she had at least given those kids some breakfast.

The tow truck finally arrived, and Dad went with it to the repair shop, so he could drive the van back when it was fixed. While the rest of the family was waiting, Mom got out a map of the Grand Canyon and pointed out various attractions that they could go see.

"Just think about it!" Mom gushed. "We're going to see one of the world's most famous landmarks today! Think of all the _history_ in that place...it said in the brochure that some of the lower rock layers were around before dinosaurs were! Isn't that amazing, kids?"

Shoji smiled at the thought of dinosaur tourists going to see the Grand Canyon (and of course, eating each other in the process and spilling guts everywhere).

Chosaku was less amused. He said quite loudly and sarcastically, "Oh wow. A hole in the ground. How exciting."

Mom started to say something back, but then was distracted by Jun yet again. The toddler had been experimenting to see whether sand was edible.

About half an hour later, Dad came back with the van, and the family set off.

This time, there were no more delays. They got to the Grand Canyon National Park in an hour.

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Shoji couldn't help but be a little excited. After all, this canyon was so deep that people could die if they fell in it and get blood everywhere! Of course, Shoji knew that there would be some kind of fence to keep that from happening, but it was still cool to just think about it.

But before they could see the canyon, they had to take a shuttle bus to reach it. It was too hot to walk all the way there, Mom said.

Most unfortunately, the bus was nearly as hot as the outside temperature. There was air conditioning, but there were so many tourists crowded in the bus that the air conditioning's effect was close to zero.

Shoji knew that it would be best to keep his complaints to himself. But Jun apparently did not know that. About halfway through the ride, he started whining for ice cream.

His shrill little-kid voice was soon grating on Shoji's nerves. He had to fight the increasingly strong urge to scream at Jun to be quiet.

Just when he thought he couldn't take it anymore...they were there.

Shoji did have to admit...this was a pretty neat place. The rocks were all sorts of colors that Shoji hadn't thought rocks could be. He saw pink, orange, red, and even some purple as he walked along.

At the bottom of the canyon was a river. Mom said it was called the Colorado River, and it had been the thing that created the whole canyon in the first place. It sure didn't LOOK all that powerful...it was just a thin bluish ribbon. But Shoji read on a sign that it was full of dangerous rapids.

'This would make an AWESOME video game!' he thought. He wondered why no one had come up with the idea before. Maybe when he grew up, he could make a game like that.

Shoji was still thinking about this video game when disaster struck.

Jun had almost forgotten about his desperate need for ice cream, until he saw a kid walk by holding an ice cream cone. His whining for ice cream started back up again.

For reasons Shoji couldn't fathom, Mom couldn't stand it when Jun suffered even this small amount.

"Okay!" she said. "Someone has to take Jun to the lodge to get ice cream. Can you do it, dear?"

She was talking to Dad, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Okay...what about you, Chosaku?"

Also nowhere to be found. Shoji could just barely see Chosaku and Dad a bit farther up, but there was no time to get to them. Jun was starting to scream.

It looked like Mom would be the one stuck with the task of fulfilling Jun's sweet tooth. Shoji would have been okay with being left alone, but Mom insisted that he come with them. Obviously, she thought Shoji was too young to be by himself.

No fair! Chosaku wasn't even two years older than Shoji, and he was left alone all the time. What did Mom think Shoji was-a baby even younger than Jun?

However, Shoji had no time to protest as Mom grabbed his hand and dragged him towards the park rest area.

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Well, at least Shoji was allowed to wait outside the refreshment stand by himself. He supposed that this was better than nothing.

So he sat on a bench and waited. It was taking a while for Mom and Jun to come back...Jun was probably taking forever to choose which flavor of ice cream he wanted.

So there Shoji sat, absorbed in his plans to make a video game where aliens invaded the Grand Canyon, when a strange sound distracted him.

It was a weird kind of sucking sound. He knew he'd heard it before, and recently too, but it took a while for him to place it.

Then, the same time he felt a small hand touching his bare knee, Shoji remembered what the sound was. It was the sound of a kid sucking on a pacifier.

Shoji looked down.

There, looking right back at him, was a little boy about Jun's age.

The kid was enthusiastically sucking on the aforementioned pacifier, and was holding some sort of square object in one hand.

Shoji wasn't quite sure what to do. The kid had practically appeared out of nowhere, and his constant, almost worshipful gaze was starting to freak Shoji out just a tiny bit.

"Um...hi?" Shoji said tentatively first in Japanese, then in English.

The kid made some sort of sound that was muffled by the pacifier, then moved a bit closer. His eyes had not left Shoji's face.

Shoji continued, "Um...are you looking for something?"

The toddler nodded and still didn't stop his staring. Shoji noticed that the kid's eyes were an odd color...sort of a dark gray.

It was pretty obvious to Shoji that this kid had somehow wandered away from his family, so he decided that he'd have to baby-sit for a while, whether he like it or not.

Five minutes passed. The only noise that either of them was making was the consistently loud pacifier-sucking coming from the toddler.

Then, abruptly, the kid held out something to Shoji. It was the square object that Shoji had spotted before. And it was something that Shoji would not expect a two-year-old kid to carry around.

"Hey kid...is this a _calculator_?" he asked.

The kid nodded for the second time.

Well, this was obviously the most thoroughly loved calculator Shoji had ever seen. It was festooned with teeth marks, and the paint on some of the number keys was almost worn off.

This was certainly a weird kid. Really...how many two-year-olds even knew what a calculator was?

Shoji tried to pretend that this was the most amazing object he had ever seen. Mom always had to lavish similar praise on any toy that Jun showed her, so as not to hurt his feelings. Shoji didn't even know if two-year-olds had any feelings to even be hurt, but he decided to just play it safe.

Then, just when Shoji was about to hand the calculator back over, he heard a shout in Japanese:

"Look, Mommy! There he is!"

A girl of about five ran over to Shoji's bench, followed closely by two people who were soon revealed to be the kid's parents.

"THERE you are, Daichi! Just where have you been all this time-we were looking everywhere for you!"

The kid (who Shoji now knew was named Daichi) had no answer for this other than the usual pacifier sucking.

Once the woman had gotten Daichi into his stroller, she turned to Shoji.

"Thank you so much for looking after Daichi for us!" she said. "He does tend to wander off on his own, so it's nice to know that someone was taking care of him. But really...I guess we should be keeping a closer eye on him. He's just so wrapped up in his own little world...I swear, one of these days he's going to run out of the house stark naked and not even realize it; he'll be too absorbed in his own big important thoughts!"

The dad replied, "Okay, dear, I think that may be exaggerating just a bit..."

The mom shrugged, and then remembered that Shoji was still there. She took out her wallet and said, "Really, we can't thank you enough...we'll even pay you for your trouble!"

Shoji reassured her that that wouldn't be necessary. He saw no need to tell them that he had hundreds of dollars just for wasting on cheap souvenirs.

The family thanked Shoji again.

Shoji then remembered that he was still holding the calculator, so he gave it back.

The woman looked impressed. She said, "Wow, you must be special...not everyone gets to meet Mr. Calculator!"

All Shoji could do was shrug, and the family went on their merry way after thanking Shoji one last time.

No sooner had they left than Mom and Jun came back. Jun's face, hair, clothes and hands were all smeared with chocolate ice cream.

Mom apologized for being late, saying that it took a while for Jun to find a flavor of ice cream that he liked. Leave it to Mom to buy Jun several different cones of ice cream if he didn't like the first one!

By the time the trio met back up with Dad and Chosaku, it was late afternoon, so they decided not to do any more sightseeing.

Shoji was fine with that. He had had more than enough adventures for one day!

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A/N: Okay, sorry if this chapter sucks...I'm writing it when I should maybe be in bed. Well, at least I got Misawa's cameo into the story...and some foreshadowing as well. And now, I am going to post this chapter, maybe wait a bit for the first review, then finally go to sleep!


	13. Mr Manjoume tries to keep his sanity

A/N: I hadn't realized that it had been so long since I last updated...sorry about that.

This will probably be another filler chapter. I'm planning for the next stop on the trip to be Yellowstone National Park, but that's quite a distance away from Arizona. Therefore, since I don't want there to be two chapters in a row where they visit a national park, I'll devote this chapter to what happens when the family is just driving along.

Disclaimer: I don't own GX, which is probably what you all have come to expect by now.

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Everyone was quiet once they got back in the van. This might have been because they were all fast asleep from their long day at the Grand Canyon.

Mr. Manjoume was a bit jealous. His wife and kids got to take a nap, but did he ever get to do so? No, because he was driving. If he were to go to sleep, the car would crash.

Right now, Mr. Manjoume really wished that he had a cup of coffee. He had never liked the beverage in Japan, but had grown addicted to it because it was the only hot beverage that most of the hotels had. And the way the whole family had so quickly gotten adjusted to eating American food, Mr. Manjoume really shouldn't have been surprised that he'd take such a shine to coffee.

But the point was, there WAS no coffee in the van, and Mr. Manjoume was in danger of falling asleep at the wheel.

With that thought, Mr. Manjoume took the first exit he saw that had a hotel.

Everyone else in the van was more than a bit cranky about being woken up.

Some people, like Mrs. Manjoume, were subtle about being in a bad mood. Some, like Jun, were not. Mr. Manjoume now had a bite mark on his arm to prove that last fact.

Mr. Manjoume decided that he might have to have a talk with his wife about the need to discipline Jun some more.

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The rest of the night was uneventful. For the fourth night in a row, Jun refused to take a bath. That was another thing they'd have to work on soon, because Jun was starting to have a less-than-clean smell about him.

The next day found them back on the road. Their next planned destination was Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, so they had two days of virtually uninterrupted driving ahead of them. Since the kids were used to visiting at least one place per day, it wasn't too many hours before they began to show signs of boredom.

Mr. Manjoume would never be sure about when the trouble started. He was too busy focusing on the road to concentrate too much on what was happening in the back seat, and Mrs. Manjoume was taking a nap. At any rate, however, one of the kids somehow got it into his mind that it would be a great idea to pester one of the other siblings.

Mr. Manjoume began to suspect that something was going on when he started hearing whispers coming from the back seat. Said whispers went something like this:

"Stop poking me!"

"I didn't poke you."

"Yes you did!"

"Did not."

"Did too."

There then followed a long string of "Did not"s and "Did too"s.

At first, Mr. Manjoume ignored this. Chosaku and Shoji were getting to be big kids-Mr. Manjoume was sure that they'd find a mature way to settle this dispute. With that thought, he turned all his attention back to driving.

For the next few minutes, the van grew quiet again. Then:

"HEY! Why'd you do that?!"

"Well, YOU started it, remember?"

"No, YOU started it!"

Mr. Manjoume decided that it might be a good idea to end this conflict. He looked over the back of the seat and asked, "Just what is going on here?"

The older boys said simultaneously while pointing at each other, "HE STARTED IT!" Jun said nothing, but was pointing an accusing finger at each of his older brothers.

Mr. Manjoume replied, "It doesn't matter WHO started it, okay? Shoji and Chosaku, you know you're old enough to know better. Now...if you're bored, you should think up a game to play! How about you play 'I Spy'?."

After a brief pause, Chosaku said in a monotone, "How about we don't?"

Mr. Manjoume was taken aback. He demanded just what was wrong with that game.

Chosaku spat out, "It's a game for little kids. How do you expect me to enjoy a BABY GAME?"

Mr. Manjoume wasn't sure just why Chosaku thought he was too old to play "I Spy", yet young enough to get involved in poking wars with his younger brothers. Then again, the brains of teenagers could be very complex at times like this.

After that, Mr. Manjoume was finally beginning to think that things had calmed down. Shoji started up his handheld game device, and, judging by the rustling of paper that was audible, Chosaku was reading some sort of magazine.

However, apparently Mr. Manjoume had not learned his lesson last time...things NEVERstayed calm in this van.

The turmoil started anew when Shoji asked politely enough, "Hey, nii-san, what are you reading?"

Chosaku snapped back, "None of your business!"

Shoji was apparently used to Chosaku's rude behavior by now, so he remained relatively unperturbed. He asked once again if he could please see what Chosaku was reading.

And, once again, Chosaku answered with an emphatic refusal.

If he thought that would deter Shoji, he was wrong. In fact, it just seemed to make Shoji more interested in this mystery piece of reading material.

"Why won't you just let me see?" he implored.

"Because you're too young to appreciate it."

"No I'm not! I promise!"

"Yes...you ARE, Shoji."

Shoji finally sounded annoyed after Chosaku made that last remark. He said, "But I am old enough! Just let me see it! How bad could it be?"

Finally, Chosaku grudgingly agreed. Mr. Manjoume felt some relief now that the conflict had apparently been resolved.

However, just seconds after Chosaku passed the magazine to Shoji, the latter let out an exclamation of mixed disgust and amusement.

"EEEWWWWW! The woman in that picture is...HEY DAD, GUESS WHAT CHOSAKU WAS READING?!"

As Mr. Manjoume pulled over onto the side of the road, he hoped that this wasn't what he thought it was.

Most unfortunately, though, it was EXACTLY what he thought it was.

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To make a long story short, Chosaku was re-exiled to the last row of seats and grounded for yet another month. Jun found the magazine on the floor and started ripping pages out of it just for fun.

Not much else happened until they stopped for lunch, and Mrs. Manjoume finally woke up.

"Well, I hope you all did fine without me!" she half-joked. Then she saw the ripped-out magazine pages that were littering Jun's carseat and the floor.

"What's all that paper doing on the car floor?" she asked while pointing at it.

Mr. Manjoume hurriedly said, "Oh, it's nothing!" and gathered all the paper into one heap. He threw both it and the remains of the magazine into the dumpster at the back of the restaurant. He just hoped that the wind wouldn't blow all the pages around after they left.

Mrs. Manjoume raised an eyebrow at this strange behavior, but evidently decided it wasn't worth pursuing further as the family walked into the latest in their long line of family restaurant stops.

A/N: Probably not my best chapter, because Mr. Manjoume is kind of boring to write for. My favorites are Jun and Chosaku. Fortunately, their chapters are coming up next, so those might be funnier.


	14. Jun Gets Left Behind

A/N: Yayz, another filler chapter! At this rate, this fic'll end up having more filler stuff than Naruto and Pokemon _combined_.

But...it is Jun's POV, so I hope you can forgive me.

Disclaimer: I don't own YuGiOh GX.

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Hey, where had the magazine gone?

Jun was very angry when he got back to his carseat after leaving the restaurant, only to find that someone had taken his magazine away. And he hadn't even been done ripping it up yet! How was he supposed to be happy knowing that his ripping task would be forever unfinished?

Well, really, it had been Chosaku's magazine. Jun had just picked it off the van's floor after his brothers had argued over it. But Jun wasn't going to let technicalities like that get in the way of his ire.

Since he didn't know just who had gotten rid of the magazine, Jun decided to be suspicious of everyone in the family. To show them that he was aware of their treacherous ways, he glared at Mommy as she finished buckling him into the carseat.

Everyone else got into their seats, and Daddy started the van back up. Good...now everyone was distracted. Jun had plenty of time to plot revenge on these magazine thiefs!

Hmm...just what should the revenge be? Jun thought for a bit.

He was pretty sure that biting wouldn't work, since he had done it so often on this trip. Everyone was probably used to it by now.

Throwing a tantrum might be an effective tool. But how was Jun supposed to communicate what was causing the tantrum? He didn't even know how to _say_ the word "magazine"! So it appeared that a tantrum was out of the question as well.

All this thinking was making Jun tired. He supposed that it wouldn't hurt for him to take a little nap. After all, he could go right back to plotting revenge when he woke up.

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About two hours later, Jun woke up from the nap.

That had sure been a nice nap. It had been especially nice since he had been left alone the whole time.

Now...what had Jun been doing before he went to sleep? He thought about this, but couldn't quite remember the details.

Oh well. If he couldn't remember it, it probably wasn't important.

Just as Jun had reached this decision, Mommy turned her head over the back of her seat to talk to Jun and his brothers.

"We're going to take a break at the gas station, okay, kids? We're running low on gas, and it would also be helpful to take a pit stop."

Chosaku mumbled something about how he wasn't a kid, while Shoji shrugged. But Jun was intrigued. He had heard of these "gas stations" before, but he had always been busy when his family stopped at one. Now, however, he was filled with curiosity at what these gas stations might be like.

He didn't have to wait long to find out. In just a couple of minutes, the van was pulling into a parking lot, which contained a building and...

Well, Jun wasn't quite sure just what that other thing was. Daddy was attaching the van to some sort of weird box that made a clicky noise.

Jun decided that he didn't like this contraption. It smelled bad. So he went into the building with Mommy and his brothers.

The building turned out to be a store. And it was a store that had all of Jun's favorite foods in it! There was one aisle that had like seven types of candy in it! Or maybe it was a slightly higher number-Jun was just starting to learn how to count, after all.

He didn't have time to give the candy a closer look right away, though. Mommy dragged him off to the bathroom so she could change his diaper. Jun hadn't even noticed until now that his diaper might need changing.

Usually, Jun was a bit fussy on public changing tables. They were made of plastic, and he found them to be very uncomfortable. However, he stayed still this time, because he wanted to go see the candy again.

Finally, Mommy was done, and she let Jun explore the aisles once more.

The candy was just as intriguing as Jun remembered. He hadn't even seen most of these brands before, and he was eager to taste them all.

He looked over at Mommy. She was standing in line, waiting to buy some food of her own. But she had only picked out boring stuff like bottles of water and crackers. Well, Jun would just have to remedy the situation.

He gathered up as much candy as would fit into his arms and ran up to Mommy. He tugged on her skirt, then looked up pleadingly at her.

To Jun's dismay, Mommy said, "Sorry, honey, but we can't buy all of those! You can choose one to get, though."

Jun didn't WANT to choose! He wanted to try them all!

He intensified the pleading look as much as possible.

However, all Mommy said in reply was, "I really want to get all of those for you, sweetie, but I've seen that candy can make you sick. And I don't want that happening!"

Okay, it was official. Mommy was MEAN! Jun didn't want to be around her anymore, so he'd just hide somewhere and eat all this candy whether they wanted him to or not.

So, while Mommy was busy looking through her wallet, Jun sneaked behind a counter. He was so focused on the candy, it didn't even occur to him that the Manjoume family was getting into the van without him. He just assumed that they'd stay put until he needed them again.

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Many candy bars later, Jun decided that his tummy hurt. He was tired of being mad at Mommy now, so he decided to come out from his hiding spot and rejoin her.

But, to Jun's utter shock and horror, Mommy was_ gone_!

Jun sat right in the middle of the store and began to whimper. The person behind the checkout counter noticed him and walked up to him.

"_Hi, little guy_. _Where's your family?_",she said.

Jun immediately decided that he didn't like this person. She was speaking in that weird "English" language, and Jun couldn't understand a word of it. Why couldn't people in the country just talk normally like at home? It made Jun mad.

Jun glared at this strange woman as angrily as he could. It wasn't an easy task, given that his tummy hurt and he was worried about Mommy.

At any rate, it didn't really seem like the lady was expecting an answer from Jun. She just took him back to the counter with her. Jun was too upset to protest.

But it turned out not to be so bad after all. The lady sat Jun on top of the counter, where he could see everything that was going on in the store. What's more, when he kicked the side of the counter, it made a satisfying thumping sound.

"_I hope my boss doesn't find out about this_..." said the woman.

Jun's tummy was finally starting to get better when he heard sirens in the parking lot. Several police cars had driven in there-Jun could see it through the window.

Jun thought police cars were almost as cool as airplanes, so he got a bit excited. He got even happier as some police guys ran into the store with their cool uniforms on.

One of the policemen spotted Jun and said, "_Well, that was easy. No need to put up all those missing posters, I guess_."

The counter lady replied, "_They were going to put up missing posters for a kid who got left behind at a gas station_?"

"_It was the family's idea, not mine_."

Jun started to get mad again, because he still couldn't understand a word that was being said. But just then, Mommy walked into the store too. She was crying. Jun giggled, because he thought it looked funny to see a grownup crying.

Mommy took Jun off his place on the counter, and told him he could get all the candy he wanted.

However, Jun just shook his head no. For one thing, his tummy still hurt a bit, and for another, he just wanted to be back with his family. This had been an exciting adventure, but Jun was more than ready for it to end.

He didn't even fuss when he was put in his carseat, and was asleep before the van had left the parking lot.

A/N: Yay! Character development! Well, sort of.


	15. Chosaku, the Unwilling Hero: Part One

A/N: I'm going to be skipping some days that just have driving in them from here on out. It'll cut down on the filler, and also make finishing the story seem like a less-daunting task to me. This is especially true since they're going to be doing a lot of driving through the Great Plains, and five chapters of driving through prairie and cornfields might get boring.

BTW, the part where Chosaku thinks about throwing himself out of the car is based on a real-life vacation experience of mine, when I was trapped in a car with my boring grandparents.

Disclaimer: Ya know what, I think I'll stop putting in disclaimers in all the chapters now. They don't seem to be as mandated as they were when I first joined the site.

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3 DAYS LATER

Well, whoop-de-_doo._

It was supposed to have only taken two days of driving to get to Yellowstone. Instead, it had been three and a _half_ days of agonizing torture for Chosaku.

The trip had been drawn out because Mom insisted on driving all the "scenic" trails through the Rockies. They had learned that "scenic" often meant "poorly maintained". So there were a lot of potholes, hairpin turns, and really steep hills. To navigate this, they had had to drive at like .00000001 kilometers per hour or something. But it was all worth it, said Mom, because the mountains were so beautiful.

Driving through the mountains also meant that Jun kept getting carsick at regular intervals. So they kept having to stop to clean him up, and that just delayed things further.

And what did Chosaku have to entertain himself during this tedium? Nothing, that's what, and it was all Shoji's fault!

He'd have to beat up Shoji good when they finally got home. Shoji had made it so all of Chosaku's good magazines had been confiscated. Said magazines had been the only thing that made the vacation worthwhile. America had MUCH better dirty magazines than they had back home, even though they were more difficult to obtain. But it had been worth it, since the American magazines didn't keep censoring all the "below the waist" parts like the Japanese ones did.

And where exactly _had_ Chosaku obtained these magazines? Well, he'd bought a whole bunch from a store in Vegas (Pretending to be 21 again), and managed to hide them among some kiddie magazines. It had been the perfect plan, until Shoji RUINED it! Now all he had were the loathsome kid-oriented publications, and even then Dad kept checking to make sure that they were "appropriate reading material", as he put it.

Sometimes, it got so boring that Chosaku contemplated throwing himself out of the car. Sure, all his bones would be broken, his internal organs would rupture, and he would most likely die, but it would all be worth it. He would have FREEDOM!

Then he remembered that the car was still going like .00000001 kilometers per hour, so he wouldn't get far before he was recaptured. He probably wouldn't be going fast enough to get any cool injuries either. Therefore, Chosaku was resigned to staying in the car like a civilized individual.

Then...just when Chosaku couldn't take it anymore...they arrived at their destination! Which turned out to be yet another boring national park. Oh boy, Chosaku couldn't wait.

He said as much to his mom, and she actually thought he meant it! Either that, or she was just ignoring the sarcasm to make Chosaku mad.

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Chosaku was reading the guidebook they had purchased, just to see the exact amounts of boredom this park contained.

Let's see...they had nature trails; a lake; some hot springs; and a bunch of animals. Yep, that sounded like a thrilling time all right.

Mom then said, "How about we go boating on the lake first? We can sit around and enjoy the scenery-it'll be so pleasant!"

Then she added, "It's so nice to see you taking an interest in this park, Chosaku! I told you it would be fun."

Chosaku rolled his eyes when Mom wasn't looking. But he made no objections to the boating idea. As long as they weren't expecting him to do anything dorky like help with the oars, he could just be free to think his own thoughts.

Thankfully, they rented a motor boat from the lake marina, so no one had to use oars after all. However, after approximately five minutes on the boat, Chosaku was officially bored out of his mind. Also, that smelly life jacket he had been forced to wear was getting on his nerves.

Jun, however, was occupied by the littlest things. He kept sticking his head over the side of the boat, so he could, in his own words, "pet fishies". However, the fish in the lake did not seem to want to be petted very much, and they stayed away from the boat.

Mom once lazily told Jun not to lean too far over the edge, but didn't pursue the issue further. She was too busy looking at the assortment of rocks and trees which she said were "scenic". They just looked like ordinary rocks and trees to Chosaku.

After a while, Jun started getting ticked off that the fish weren't racing over to cuddle with him. So he leaned as far as he could over the edge to get a better range.

Chosaku thought to himself that this wasn't going to end well for Jun. He considered warning his parents, but decided against it. Why should Jun be HIS problem?

Sure enough, just a few minutes later, there was a small cry and a splash.

Chosaku was going to just let Jun suffer for a while. Jun's head was above the surface of the water, and he was wearing the life jacket AND a pair of those inflatable wings, so he was in no immediate danger of drowning. However, Jun just so happened to fall right on front of where Chosaku was sitting. Mom barely had time to scream before Chosaku's reflexes kicked in, and he pulled Jun out of the water.

Dad immediately took the boat back to the shore, so they could dry Jun off. It was Mom's firm opinion that Jun would now be scarred for life, so she convinced Dad to take the rest of this day off. In fact, Jun seemed to get over it pretty quicky. Sure, he bawled annoyingly for a few minutes, but he was more shocked than hurt. By the time they were approaching the marins, Jun had stopped crying. He had started to gaze adoringly at Chosaku.

Chosaku got goosebumps. He did not like the look on Jun's face one bit.

Chosaku's premonitions proved correct. Jun clung on to his leg all the way back to the nearest lodge (where he got dried off), then all the way back to the van. He screamed as Dad tried to put him in his carseat. In the end, they could only get him to calm down by putting him on Chosaku's lap.

Now Chosaku would have to have Jun in his face all the way to one of the park's hotels-literally. Jun wasn't wearing a seatbelt, so he kept turning around and breathing right in Chosaku's face with his annoyingly hot breath. It drove the older boy CRAZY! At least Jun's diaper had been changed at the lodge. Chosaku would have probably died from the stench had it not been changed.

When they were walking to the hotel, Jun resumed the leg-clinging. This made walking quite difficult. Jun was by no means fat, but he wasn't a newborn baby anymore either. Chosaku thus tried to shake him off.

"Stop humping my leg, you little freak!" he said ever-so-kindly while trying to pry apart Jun's arms. Jun only responded by holding on more tightly.

Mom smiled.

"Aww, he likes you! I knew you all would get along someday. How about you look after him tomorrow? I'll pay you."

Chosaku started to emphatically refuse, but Dad glared at him. It looked like he had no choice. Tomorrow, while they spent all day at the park, he would have to BABYSIT!

He could have sworn he heard creepy music playing somewhere in the background...

TBC

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A/N: I decided to make this chapter be a two-parter as well, so I could update more quickly.

Just so you know, Jun isn't deliberately trying to be annoying for once. It's sort of like the whole "You saved our lives; we are eternally grateful." joke from Toy Story 2.


	16. Chosaku, the Unwilling Hero: Part Two

A/N: Sorry for the delay. I did get some ideas for this chapter, but I was scared to write it. Somebody said that this story was boring, and I don't want to have to torture my readers with a boring story:( The person also said some very rude and R-rated stuff about me when I tried to defend myself. And the whole thing started when I was trying to defend yet another person!

Well, I hope that at least some of you don't mind this story, and I'll continue to work on improving it. I do miss writing about the Saiou family, so you'll probably be hearing from them again.

* * *

"Yes, Jun, I have body hair. Yes, I'm sure it's very intriguing. Now, will you stop touching my legs already?!" 

Chosaku was saying this while he was taking a bath with Jun. He wasn't even sure how he got here in the first place. Jun had been busy sleeping all afternoon, so Chosaku thought that maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. But then it came time for Jun to take his bath.

As it turned out, Jun refused to take a bath unless Chosaku was in it. That's right...it wouldn't do just to have Chosaku GIVE him the bath. He had to be in the actual bathtub for Jun to comply with being washed. And guess who had to do all the washing? That's right...Chosaku did!

Jun didn't know a thing about cleaning himself, so Chosaku had to soap up every last speck of Jun's body. Yes, even _there_. That made Chosaku feel like some dirty pedophile or something, but Jun didn't seem to care one way or the other. He was still at the stage where "privacy" was a foreign concept.

And now, just when all the washing was done, Jun had randomly become fascinated by the hair that was starting to grow on Chosaku's legs. Currently, he was busy running his hands up and down said legs, for reasons that weren't entirely clear.

Chosaku tolerated this for as long as he could, and then pried Jun's hands off his legs. Then he drained the water in the bath, so Jun wouldn't start looking at _other_ places on his body.

Chosaku was sure that Jun would look adorable to anyone else. The bath had given him rosy cheeks, his hair was newly washed, and he was wearing one of those pairs of pajamas that had the feet on them. However, Chosaku was not "anyone else". He was the innocent victim who was just trying to sleep.

He turned over on his side and pulled the blankets over his head, so Jun's face wouldn't be shoved right into his. But that wouldn't deter the toddler. He just burrowed into the blankets and curled up against Chosaku's chest. Once again, this would have been wonderfully cute...to anyone _but_ Chosaku.

On the other side of the bed, Shoji let out a little snore. He was fast asleep; his slumber undisturbed by two-year-old brats. He wasn't aware of just how lucky he was, Chosaku thought as he tried to push Jun as far away from himself as he could.

This was going to be a long and sleepless night...

* * *

"Okay, kids, it's time to wake up and have more adventures!" 

Mom's voice sounded cheerful, but Chosaku was anything _but_ cheerful. It figured that as soon as he really started to get some decent sleep, it would be time to get up.

On the contrary, Jun looked very well-rested. The rat.

Fortunately, some of the shock of yesterday's fall seemed to be wearing off for Jun. He still kept close to Chosaku, but at least he wasn't doing the leg-humping thing anymore. Thus, Chosaku felt slightly happier as they drove off to the nearest hiking trail. He wasn't sure what more there was to see, though. So this park had a lot of hot springs. Big deal...so did Japan.

Dad parked at a trail that seemed to be well-marked, and off they went. Chosaku was stuck with the job of pushing Jun's stroller. Well, at least he wouldn't have to carry him. His parents were so dorky, they had actually given him a walkie-talkie in case he got lost.

Chosaku and Jun quickly got ahead of everyone else. Shoji was a few meters behind, valiantly trying to keep up with his older brother. Mom and Dad were way behind, since they were admiring every single rock and tree that they found. Every so often, Mom would call the kids on the walkie-talkie, reminding them not to get too far ahead.

Jun was surprisingly interested in his surroundings. He would sometimes crane his neck over the side of the stroller to look at something he found to be intriguing. Then again, _he _didn't have to walk. He could just sit on his fat, diapered butt and look at everything.

Finally, Chosaku decided to rest for a few minutes. He wanted everyone else to catch up with him, so Mom would stop with those annoying walkie-talkie messages. He was just taking a sip of water from his new canteen when he saw something that was much more interesting than a rock or a tree.

Yes...there was a hot chick walking down the path right in Chosaku's direction! She seemed unaware that he was there, because she was jogging and listening to her Walkman.

Chosaku spit out his mouthful of water when he saw that the hot chick was wearing spandex exercise shorts and a matching sports bra. The outfit only seemed to emphasize her already abundant...attributes. Chosaku hoped that he wouldn't get a nosebleed.

The woman was just about to pass them by, and thus foil Chosaku's attempts to seduce her, when Jun did something good for once. Apparently, the hot chick had a soft spot for children, because she turned her Walkman off and bent over to look at Jun.

"_Aren't you just the cutest little thing_?" she said as she bent over the stroller. Oh, what Chosaku wouldn't give to be in Jun's place right now. He cleared his throat so the woman would notice his presence. She turned over to look at him.

"_Is this your brother_?" she asked him.

"_Yeeeees_," replied Chosaku in his best English, lowering his voice and stretching out the word so as to sound as seductive as possible.

However, his attempts at flirting failed as the woman turned her attention back to Jun. She left soon after that, since Jun had started to grope her.

Chosaku couldn't help but be impressed at Jun's pervertedness.

"Not bad, kid," he said, "It looks like you learn fast enough when you want to."

Jun smiled, then went back to looking at the scenery.

* * *

They stopped for a picnic lunch about an hour later. 

Chosaku saw Mom wince as he and Shoji eagerly ripped open bags of potato chips. If she had had her way, they would be eating sushi and tofu. However, all three of the boys had grown to love American junk food in the short time they had been in this country.

"So, what did you think of all that you saw? Isn't this a beautiful place?" Mom asked them after a while.

"Yeah..." replied Chosaku. He was actually thinking about the hot chick, but Mom didn't have to know that. She seemed satisfied enough with his answer.

Shoji had come up with a monologue about how cool it would be to see someone get boiled alive in the hot spring. Fortunately, Mom made him be quiet after about a minute or so.

The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. They got to see Old Faithful, and even Chosaku was slightly impressed by that. He had to admit that they didn't have _that_ in Japan. Jun was very cranky because the roaring of the geyser had woken him up from his nap.

It started to rain in the late afternoon, so they headed back to the hotel a bit early. Jun had gone back to sleep, so Chosaku had freedom for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Actually, Chosaku had decided that Jun might not be so bad after all. Well, sort of. Some of the time. He would just have to be sure no one else ever knew that he had just thought that; ESPECIALLY Jun!

A/N: There...I think that this chapter was reasonably interesting...


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